The amount of shady cars on donedeal! (rant)

Captain Slow IRL

The mrs. is looking for a replacement motor; she has it narrowed down to a passat or avensis d4d. Went checking out a few passats on donedeal (doing car history/finance check) and out of the 5 I checked, only 1 came back as okay and that's pending a visual inspection!

1 of them was an insurance write off in England, 1 was an ex-taxi and 2 of them changed owners in the last 2 months - meaning either someone was flipping them for a profit or they discovered some serious flaw with them. One of the latter had 7 owners as well :rolleyes:

Are there any decent/honest cars for sale?!

triple-M

I know the feeling and also those checks aint cheap i spent the best part of 150 quid checking numerous cars desperate to find something genuine,it didnt help the fact that i was looking at passats,skodas audis,mercs with the majority of them showing mileage discrepancies or being ex taxis,eventually i did find a reasonably legit one so it was worth the money

colm_mcm

The decent ones tend to cost more.
It is annoying though.

zom

Captain Slow IRL wrote: »

The mrs. is looking for a replacement motor; she has it narrowed down to a passat or avensis d4d. Went checking out a few passats on donedeal

Eastern Europeans tend to buy-up all passats for some reason. Did she check avensis'es? What about them?

CiniO

zom wrote: »

Eastern Europeans tend to buy-up all passats for some reason. Did she check avensis'es? What about them?

True.
Polish people (especially from the country side) seem to love their Passats and Golfs, as much as Irish people love Avensis and Corollas.

I can't understand a reason for it.

CiniO

Captain Slow IRL wrote: »

The mrs. is looking for a replacement motor; she has it narrowed down to a passat or avensis d4d. Went checking out a few passats on donedeal (doing car history/finance check) and out of the 5 I checked, only 1 came back as okay and that's pending a visual inspection!

1 of them was an insurance write off in England, 1 was an ex-taxi and 2 of them changed owners in the last 2 months - meaning either someone was flipping them for a profit or they discovered some serious flaw with them. One of the latter had 7 owners as well :rolleyes:

Are there any decent/honest cars for sale?!

Out of all those you listed, insurance write-off from UK, might be actually the best one.
If there is a chance to find out exactly what and to how extent was damaged, this might be worth considering.

Captain Slow IRL

zom wrote: »

Eastern Europeans tend to buy-up all passats for some reason. Did she check avensis'es? What about them?

Not yet, didn't really see anything that fitted the budget yet

CiniO wrote: »

Out of all those you listed, insurance write-off from UK, might be actually the best one.
If there is a chance to find out exactly what and to how extent was damaged, this might be worth considering.

If it was just a runabout for me to trash around it, it wouldn't bother me. But when it's destined to be a family wagon, I ain't taking any chances. Plus, resale value would be greatly affected.

George Dalton

colm_mcm wrote: »

The decent ones tend to cost more.
It is annoying though.

You get what you pay for. Simple as.

CiniO

Captain Slow IRL wrote: »

If it was just a runabout for me to trash around it, it wouldn't bother me. But when it's destined to be a family wagon, I ain't taking any chances. Plus, resale value would be greatly affected.

I've seen recently a write off from NI with hailstone damage.
Price was very attractive, and assuming someone could fix then hailstone dents cheaply and properly, there were thousands to save.

You obviously might have bit lower resale value, but you will also pay much lower, so in the end you save good bit.

Obviously in some cases write off might be not a good idea, but I just wouldn't automatically assume writeoff = big-no-no, as it all depends.

yop

So do you think people who are looking for cars will not now look at donedeal, aka dodgeydeal!
I will be putting my motor on it in the next 2 weeks or so, am I wasting my time joining the trail of dodgy motors?

Syllabus

whats wrong with someone making a few quid on flipping a car?

whats the prob with 7 owners?

randy hickey

Time to try Carzone OP.

Your wife needs something like this;

http://www.carzone.ie/search/Volkswagen/Passat/HIGHLINE/34113654320965150/advert?channel=CARS

Kristopherus

Syllabus wrote: »

whats wrong with someone making a few quid on flipping a car?

whats the prob with 7 owners?

Flipping car = dodgy car.:(

7 owners = definitely dodgy car:mad:

Toots

I'm probably showing total ignorance here, but what would be the reasons not to buy an ex taxi? Is it just cos it's been used and abused or is it something else?

NIMAN

yop wrote: »

So do you think people who are looking for cars will not now look at donedeal, aka dodgeydeal!
I will be putting my motor on it in the next 2 weeks or so, am I wasting my time joining the trail of dodgy motors?

DoneDeal was being touted as by far the best place to sel lyour car, their sales are very high, if you believe the adverts they run.

Its probably the same as car sales in any form, there will be plenty of genuine sellers, and probably plenty of crooks too.

Syllabus

Kristopherus wrote: »

Flipping car = dodgy car.:(

7 owners = definitely dodgy car:mad:

i have bought more cars than i can count solely to sell on asap - not one of them was dodgy


7 owners = definitely dodgy car :rolleyes::rolleyes:

so father gets a brand new car, 3 yrs later gets handed down to mother, 2yrs later oldest child gets it, 2 yrs later next child gets it, 2 yrs later last child gets, 3 yrs later its sold on out of the family

6 owners - wheres the dodgy part??


its all relative - if the car has changed hands 7 times in a short space of time then fair enough but writing a car off based on number of owners is ridiculous





imo

Dionysius2

Renault Lagunas represent great value currently and they are strong and generally reliable cars and there are quite a lot of them about. Take a look at 5 or 6 of them and there's a good chance that you'll find one suitable to your needs. Buy one from it's real owner and who has had it a little while, a year or more and ask them plenty about THEIR OWN personal experiences with the car. Scrutinise service documentation. Ignore sellers who are selling it for 'friends'. Stay sharp when talking to sellers but remember that the guy you are looking for won't necessarily be slick but his honesty should generally shine through. If it sounds dodgy, it is dodgy. Trust your instinct.

rocky

Do you need a diesel? Petrols might have less chance of being dodgy

biko

Toots* wrote: »

I'm probably showing total ignorance here, but what would be the reasons not to buy an ex taxi? Is it just cos it's been used and abused or is it something else?

Nah, that's it. Wear and tear around the clock. Lots of people having used it.

Del2005

Syllabus wrote: »

whats wrong with someone making a few quid on flipping a car?

whats the prob with 7 owners?

Nothing wrong with flipping a car, just like there's nothing wrong with being suspicious of the reason for selling so quickly after purchase.

Depending on age 7 owners shows a dog car. A 2 year old car with 7 owners, unless it's a niche vehicle, is a big warning. Whereas on a 10 year old car not so much but it depends on how long each owner kept it, 2 owners for 8 years and 5 in 2 years could be a warning.

At the end of the day a car purchase is down to personal choice. Some people insist on buying from dealers, some only buy bangers with tax/test left. There's nothing wrong with flipping or loads of owners, just like there's nothing wrong with no service history, but the buyer can choose to buy the one owner FSH car instead.

Sobanek

CiniO wrote: »

True.
Polish people (especially from the country side) seem to love their Passats and Golfs, as much as Irish people love Avensis and Corollas.

I can't understand a reason for it.

That's why it's called the Polonez in the popular culture

Bigus

Toots* wrote: »

I'm probably showing total ignorance here, but what would be the reasons not to buy an ex taxi? Is it just cos it's been used and abused or is it something else?

Very good question Toots, ex -taxis can be very good buys.

The reason there is a stigma with ex Taxis, and an extra large hit on depreciation is a historical in Ireland.

Taxis used to be on the road 24 / 7 with three or more drivers because they were so scarce and limited in numbers and very profitable to keep going all day and night. Maybe 2500 in dublin compared to 16000 now.

Historically They effectively had no test and no maintenance and consequently when they were sold they were barely fit for scrap, I remember being in some seriously dangerous Nissan laurels and VW jettas, and mercs with 1 million plus miles.

So they ended up in auction clocked and decrepit and fit for nothing, in some cases not even usable parts, hence the auction branding them separately as taxis because they were so bad, to avoid comeback.


However in 2013
With part time drivers , sheer extra numbers , the annual NCT and suitability test and checked for clocking an ex TAXI could very well make an excellent buy subject to inspection.

After all Michael o learys S Class merc is an ex Taxi now !

CiniO

Syllabus wrote: »

i have bought more cars than i can count solely to sell on asap - not one of them was dodgy


7 owners = definitely dodgy car :rolleyes::rolleyes:

so father gets a brand new car, 3 yrs later gets handed down to mother, 2yrs later oldest child gets it, 2 yrs later next child gets it, 2 yrs later last child gets, 3 yrs later its sold on out of the family

6 owners - wheres the dodgy part??


its all relative - if the car has changed hands 7 times in a short space of time then fair enough but writing a car off based on number of owners is ridiculous





imo

True.
Surprisingly some people would prefer one owner car, because they don't know that this owner was "budget" or "hertz" and car had 300 drivers over last 2 years, instead of car with 3 or 4 owners.

s14driftking

best car i ever bought was an ex taxi.

fifth

I'd just like to add, for balance, that I recently sold a (genuine) decent motor on DoneDeal within a week and had a genuine buyer. Found the whole process simple and good value imo. Had one timewaster texting me offering me lowball offers but I ignore texters anyway. Would definitely use DD again anyway.

People selling crashed / ex taxi's etc on DoneDeal - it's not really the sites fault I'm sure you could find that on other used motoring sites.

AK333

Can I ask how you knew it was a taxi before you bought it? Is there a check you can do? I'm asking as I found out, after I bought it that a car I had was ex hire car but luckily never had a bit of trouble with it - still would rather have known before I paid over the cash

L-M

AK333 wrote: »

Can I ask how you knew it was a taxi before you bought it? Is there a check you can do? I'm asking as I found out, after I bought it that a car I had was ex hire car but luckily never had a bit of trouble with it - still would rather have known before I paid over the cash

Being an ex hire car and taxi are two completely. Different things. The taxi with be changed from a privately taxed car to taxed as a taxi, and recorded as such.

A hire car will be the same as any other used car.

But, if you're buying a basic D reg car with no history you should thread carefully.

AK333

Limerick man wrote: »

Being an ex hire car and taxi are two completely. Different things. The taxi with be changed from a privately taxed car to taxed as a taxi, and recorded as such.

A hire car will be the same as any other used car.

But, if you're buying a basic D reg car with no history you should thread carefully.

Now you tell me :rolleyes:

Thx I won't get caught again

Basil Fawlty

Cars should be viewed on condition only. Condition is everything. Number plates, year of manufacture, number of owners, length of ownership,even the brand mean nothing.

the corpo

Our Avensis is an ex-taxi, and it's fantastic, our mechanic always gets annoyed when we bring it in for a service, cos he knows he'll find nothing wrong with it!

Eric Cartman

donedeal is probably the only realistically priced car site in Ireland. The shear number of cars on it means your going to get some bad ones.

The problem is your looking for passats and avensis's , two of the most common cars in the country along with micras, golfs and soon quasqais .

if your starting at the bottom of the price bracket your definitely going to find the scams, if its a lot cheaper than other cars of the same spec/ year, you dont neet a motorcheck report to tell you somethings wrong.

Recent photos, full details about tax, nct and mileage, a well written ad , a verifiable service history and a good visual inspection by a competent person with mechanical knowledge - the only way to buy a used car.

triple-M

yop wrote: »

So do you think people who are looking for cars will not now look at donedeal, aka dodgeydeal!
I will be putting my motor on it in the next 2 weeks or so, am I wasting my time joining the trail of dodgy motors?

if your putting it up on donedeal heres a handy link ;-)

http://www.donedeal.ie/campaign/BabyFair?utm_source=BabyFair&utm_medium=event&utm_campaign=BabyFair

Tango One

Putting the reg into google can show some interesting stuff too.

Take this car 100K on the clock now but was up for sale last year with 177K

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/4872777

http://www.carnext.ie/03042012.pdf

sh1tstirrer

George Dalton wrote: »

You get what you pay for. Simple as.

Sometimes you get more than what you pay for other times you get less than what you pay for

JHet

Tango One wrote: »

Putting the reg into google can show some interesting stuff too.

Take this car 100K on the clock now but was up for sale last year with 177K

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/4872777

http://www.carnext.ie/03042012.pdf

Oh dear!

Making no mistake clocking is rife in this country. Probably just as bad as the UK. GF's mother recently traded her banger into a main dealer. Within days it was up on done deal with 60k shaved off the clock. Most likely main garage passed it on to some unscrupulous individual down the food chain looking for trade stock as seems to be common in the motor industry. Now don't get me wrong lot of guys making an honest living doing this but far to many shisters at this kind of craic. Just have to be so careful.

keithsfleet

I spent 5 hours today driving around Dublin looking at 6 cars that I saw on done deal.
Now keeping in mind I'm looking for a temporary car sub 500.
I was somewhat shocked to find the state of the cars people are willing to fob off, I'm not taking about someone who knows nothing about cars and probably didn't realise this or that fault.
I'm taking about near complete big end bearing failure (almera), a ka with to many faults to list and all fairly significant, a wheel that WILL fall off if pushed to hard into a corner and blatant over revving (punto). Another hgf which ended up bursting a hose from overheating as i inspected it (punto) Finally and personally my favourite a fiesta that had no keys (not stated in the ad) at all and the owner said I couldn't hot wire it unless I bought it first which is fair but I'm not going to buy a car without hearing it run.

Every person I rang I stated I am a mechanic and will find any faults. Each and every person swore blind that their car was mechanically sound.
An entire day wasted looking at cars I could of easily gotten in a scrap yard.

None of those cars could fall into the category of "ohh I didn't realise it had that fault"
People really don't care what condition car they will allow a member of the public to drive off in.

Also, I know for 400 - 500 I'm not gong to get a problem free car.
And I know people don't put cars through the nct because they know they will fail.
Please for the love of god stop wasting mine and your time and fess up that it will take a considerable amount of time/work to pass the nct or perhaps just admit what costly reason you haven't attempted the nct.

Syllabus

Limerick man wrote: »

But, if you're buying a basic D reg car with no history you should thread carefully.

what are we threading now a needle?

maybe i should tread carefully here


sure ur just a mulchie, you think a muck spreader is an acceptable form of transport to go to the local dishco/supermacs/mass in




imo


attn humourless mods - im having a laugh. im not abusing anyone

Syllabus

keithsfleet wrote: »

Also, I know for 400 - 500 I'm not gong to get a problem free car.
.

i sold a rover 45 2002 with tax and nct with 45k for 550 a few weeks ago


cars are out there

fartman

lots of crap on dd alright bring someone that knows about cars and take your time looking at it.

keithsfleet

Syllabus wrote: »

i sold a rover 45 2002 with tax and nct with 45k for 550 a few weeks ago


cars are out there

I know, I sold an FTO 3 months ago for 400 that only needed an exhaust to pass the nct, purely didn't have the 80 euro to replace it and couldn't afford to leave it sitting.
Unfortunately it's sifting through 15 complete lemons with lying owners to find that little hidden gem.

I'm not going to discriminate but one thing I did learn a while ago was if someone sounds like a certain "undesirable" type of person and they are selling in the sub 500 range, steer clear and don't waste your time.

George Dalton

Eric Cartman wrote: »

if your starting at the bottom of the price bracket your definitely going to find the scams, if its a lot cheaper than other cars of the same spec/ year, you dont neet a motorcheck report to tell you somethings wrong.

This is it exactly. If you go onto Donedeal and do a search for a given make/model/year and then start looking at the cheapest examples it is a sure way of finding a ball of scrap.

People like to fool themselves into thinking this isn't the case though. They convince themselves that the €3k Octavia is the same car as the €5k Octavia just the price is different. The reality as shown in this thread is a bit different though...

Mar4ix

is NCT taken in to consideration when looking for car?

I have one car for sale in DD, which passed NCT with flying colors, probably not a most popular car, similar cars cost nearly half cheaper, but i havent got any call about it, even to haggle down the price. Or people expecting get NCT'd and taxed cars for same money ??

keithsfleet

Mar4ix wrote: »

is NCT taken in to consideration when looking for car?

I have one car for sale in DD, which passed NCT with flying colors, probably not a most popular car, similar cars cost nearly half cheaper, but i havent got any call about it, even to haggle down the price. Or people expecting get NCT'd and taxed cars for same money ??

Pm me a link and I'll see what's wrong with it.

sean1141

I had the same problem selling my tdci mondeo ghia. It was a spotless car with 2 previous owners 1 years test and 3months tax. Only problem was the millage was on the high side but the car had a full service history down to bulbs that were fitted. People were ringing comparing the price to that of 90bhp lx models with no test and tax. Mine was a 130bhp ghia with leather and xenons.. of course I was going to ask a bit more for it.. I paid more for it in the first place.. the problem in this country is people want a top end used car for bottom end money. They will ring about 10 piles of junk that are cheap before calling about one decent car..

magic_murph

With the variety of dodgy cars on donedeal etc do you think it's a safer / less hassle bet to buy from some of the bigger direct dealers around as in staright from an Audi, VW garage. Granted you will pay more than a private sale but if that gives you more peace of mind that the car is genuine is that not worth it?

Mar4ix

magic_murph wrote: »

With the variety of dodgy cars on donedeal etc do you think it's a safer / less hassle bet to buy from some of the bigger direct dealers around as in staright from an Audi, VW garage. Granted you will pay more than a private sale but if that gives you more peace of mind that the car is genuine is that not worth it?

I believe many has pretty limited funds buy from dealers, so they are chancing their arm get fancy car for lil money.

Eric Cartman

magic_murph wrote: »

With the variety of dodgy cars on donedeal etc do you think it's a safer / less hassle bet to buy from some of the bigger direct dealers around as in staright from an Audi, VW garage. Granted you will pay more than a private sale but if that gives you more peace of mind that the car is genuine is that not worth it?

which VAG dealer do you work for :pac:

dgt

keithsfleet wrote: »

Also, I know for 400 - 500 I'm not gong to get a problem free car

When I sold my old Festy Feb last for 450, you could have saw the work that went into it on here in the "Today I did" thread. I overhauled the brakes and suspension. All fluids renewed. New headlights, new gearbox, bigger clutch and new slave cylinder. Sills rewelded and rustproofed (probably better than when it left the factory). New tyres and winter tyres at that. CD6000 radio with code. Plenty more I can't remember off hand but I was fairly happy with how the car turned out

After 2500 extra miles on the clock from when I got it (went back to my van) I let it go for 450 with a fresh NCT with report sheet, 1 litre of 5w30 Ford spec oil, novelty horns and half a tank of petrol.

And it broke my heart to watch it driving round the local town slowly getting driven into the ground. All my work and time spent pretty much went unappreciated. Both myself and another boardsie are still pissed off about it. I don't know where it is now but I'd prob throw up if I saw it, the last time I saw it my new drop links, strut and tyre were in bits. I got swindled into supplying and replacing the strut for free too, bastards :mad:

So these days if I decide to rid of a car I'll strip it and send it for scrap rather than watch it getting driven into the ground. It's a lot less aggrevating that way.

My point is that the really good cars are out there for peanuts if you know who to go to

Del2005

magic_murph wrote: »

With the variety of dodgy cars on donedeal etc do you think it's a safer / less hassle bet to buy from some of the bigger direct dealers around as in staright from an Audi, VW garage. Granted you will pay more than a private sale but if that gives you more peace of mind that the car is genuine is that not worth it?

Main dealers sell lemons also. You have to throughly inspect any car you want to buy. That means getting a mechanic to check it over, or if you are a mechanic a 2nd set of eyes, and do a history check. The only advantage of buying from a main dealer is that they generally have nice showrooms, but you'll pay for them. The disadvantage is that they don't usually deal in cars over 4 years old, they'll send them to the trade.

jolou86

in a similar position myself looking for a Mazda 3 on donedeal among other sites. My issue is that I believe the prices people look for on donedeal are realistic and more people advertise there because apparently it's fairly cheap to advertise on it. Then I go somewhere like carzone or some other site and the prices for same car are doubled or often tripled and no way I could afford this. I think maybe it costs more to advertise on those sites and barely anyone seems to anymore.
I've come across two questionable cars so far on D.D. and it does make you wary but then you have those other sites and dealers just charging way way too much for their car, they way over value. I'm looking for a 2004-that's a ten year old car practically!!
I don't really know what to do and am finding it increasingly hard to find a good spot to check out cars are realistic prices-I used the Local trader to buy my current but to be honest no one seems to advertise in it anymore....argh!!!